


Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

by orphan_account



Series: Like we're gonna die young [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Happy birtday Alckalin you're one awesome shipping waifu, M/M, Multi, Soulmark AU, also wtf everyone keeps accidentally seeing everyone's marks, you guys aren't taking this taboo very seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo doesn't have a SoulMark.<br/>What he does have is a crush.<br/>On Thorin and Bofur.<br/>Nevermind that they're obviously attracted to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alckalin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alckalin/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY WAIFU I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!! :D

Bilbo didn’t have a Mark.

In that, as in many other things, he was a very unusual hobbit. Everyone else had one, usually above their heart, though some people had it on their back or shoulders, or who knew what other place. Unlike most other races, hobbits didn’t have a set emplacement for their Marks, and there wasn’t a tween who hadn’t spent hours trying to figure out where their Mark would appear.

Except for Bilbo.

He hadn’t really cared, to be honest.

His parents had died soon before the time where his Mark might have appeared, and he’d had much bigger problems to deal with at that moment, like proving all his relative that even if he wasn’t quite adult yet, he could take care of himself and didn’t need to be sent to live with an aunt or uncle.

It had been lonely, in Bag Ends, all alone like that, but lonely was better than being with his Took or Baggins cousin, all of them trying to find love and get families and all sort of such things that did nothing but remind him of how in love his parents had been, how sad Belladonna had been after she’d lost her ‘little ball of merriness’ as she used to call Bungo. Bilbo didn’t see how anyone could want to be in love when there was such a risk of pain at the end of it.

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t wanted some companionship sometimes. It did get very lonely. But he’d never met a single hobbit that could interest him, and he knew already that no one would want a Markless person.

So he did his best to live alone, and since he had no one to take care of, he spent his time and energy in making his house a lovely, comfortable home where he never missed anything.

 

Until the night thirteen dwarves crashed into his home.

Nothing was ever the same after that.

 

Thorin was, on the whole, a horrible, terrible person, who thought far too highly of himself, prince or not.

Bofur had a dreadful sense of humour and he enjoyed teasing people far too much with no regard for their comfort, and he didn’t have the first notion of hygiene (his pocket as a handkerchief, really!).

 

Thorin was surprisingly kind sometimes, taking care that everyone in his Company was well, noticing easily when something was off. He had the most wonderful of voices, and yes like the bluest of skies on a beautiful spring afternoon when the world was just starting to properly warm up and the frost of winter seemed gone for ever. He had a way of moving, a way of talking, a way of being that made it clear that he knew what he wanted, and would stop at nothing to get it.

Bofur was very fun in the end, and he too was kind, making sure the less hardened member of the Company didn’t feel out of place or useless, talking with everyone as if there was no better way for him to spend his time than to listen to them.

 

It didn’t take long for Bilbo to like them both.

It didn’t take long for Bilbo to love them both.

It would have been so much easier to deal with if they hadn’t so obviously been attracted to each other.

It wasn’t much. They seemed rather shy about it, or maybe there were just complications he wasn’t aware of. Men didn’t like the idea of two males lying together, even if they were soulmates, maybe dwarves were the same. He tried to ask young Ori and his friend Dwalin about how Marks worked with dwarves, but what he learned didn’t help him much in the end.

Still, it was obvious to him, from the way they looked at each other, smiled at each other, the accidental touches that couldn’t be that accidental.

They looked wonderful together, too. They looked right. Bofur clearly had the greatest admiration for Thorin, and in return the prince smiled more easily at the toymaker than at anyone else, his own nephews included. Bilbo hoped they would overcome whatever still kept them apart, and be happy together.

He would never be, not in such a way at least, but he wouldn’t mind if _they_ could be.

 

Bilbo wished they wouldn’t pay so much attention to him, though. It was hard, dealing with Bofur’s kindness and friendship on a daily basis, and know he’d never have him.

It was just as hard dealing with Thorin’s hatred of him, and know that he couldn’t, _shouldn’t_ do anything to change his opinion, or he might reveal something best left hidden.

It broke his heart to hear Thorin say in the mountains that he should never have come.

It hurt no less to hear Bofur trying to keep him around that same night.

But he’d made his choice, and it was the best for everyone.

Except goblins happened, of course, and he fell underground.

 

Goblins were terrifying.

Riddles were terrifying.

But he had to get back to the others, had to make sure everyone was safe.

They were.

Not for long.

Wargs were terrifying.

Orcs were terrifying.

But someone had to protect Thorin, and he was the first one on his feet.

He would not let anyone kill his prince.

He would not let anyone kill Bofur’s prince.

He just wouldn’t.

 

Eagles were terrifying too, but in a much nicer way.

 

Thorin hugging him might have been the most terrifying thing he’d had to deal with.

The best one too.

It was hard not to react, but he still managed it. He was a grown hobbit, not an hormonal tween, and he could control himself, thank you very much.

But he stored away the memory of Thorin’s strong arms around him, the warmth of the prince. It would be a thing to think of on darker days.

He wondered if he had any chance of ever getting a hug from Bofur. He hoped so. Then he could finally give up on them without a second thought.

 

Down the Carrock, they found a great lake.

That was where everything changed.

They were all covered in blood, most of which wasn’t their own, and they stank from it, so they decided that a bath would be a good idea, and even Bilbo didn’t protest. Until then, he’d always done his best to not bathe with them, for the sake of propriety, and because he did not need to know what Bofur and Thorin looked like naked, thank you very much. But they were in uncertain territories this time, and he couldn’t get away from them, nor wait until they were done to have his turn.

The dwarves separated in small groups, but there was nothing unusual in that, they always did when they were in a situation that required them to undress. Dwalin and Ori had explained to him that it was so that only their families might see their Marks, since it was most improper to let it be seen by strangers.

Bilbo thought it strange then to see these two dwarves go a little way away with Kili and Fili, but he didn’t question it.

That seemed to be the unspoken agreement in the entire company: no matter what these four do, don’t question it, because they might _answer_.

Bilbo wondered briefly if he should go with them. He’d seen Dwalin’s Mark already, so that might have been safe... But then, Bifur grabbed him by the arm and dragged him with him and his cousins, and Bilbo didn’t resist.

He would not have _tried_ to look at Bofur naked, but he wasn’t going to refuse a chance to do it if it came to him.

The dwarf, as usual, was very friendly, and teased him a bit about Thorin’s hug, saying he might get jealous, and how come he didn’t get hugs, and...

“What’s that on yer back?” he asked when Bilbo removed his shirt.

“Must have a few bruises,” the hobbit sighed. “I’ve gone through a couple of very bad falls.”

“Doesn’t look like a bruise at all,” Bombur noted, and Bilbo could almost _hear_ his frown. “Looks more like...”

“It does,” Bofur grunted, his voice hoarse, the tip of a finger touching a spot of Bilbo’s lower back that had him shivering. It had always been a rather sensitive place, just above where his back stopped being his _back_.

“Mahal help me,” Bofur groaned. “Gotta show this to th’other idiot.”

“What? What do you have to show... Ah!”

Without an explanation, Bofur dragged the hobbit away, toward where Thorin was undressing with some help from Balin. The older dwarf threw them a surprised glance before apparently deciding that he did not want to know what was going on, and leaving the three of them alone.

“Can I help you with something, master Bofur?” Thorin asked politely, as if they weren’t all half naked and stinking of blood and sweat.

“Yeah, ye can, m’lord,” the toymaker replied, turning Bilbo so that his back was before the prince. “Look at this, tell me what ye see.”

Looking over his shoulder, the hobbit saw the prince go red.

“That’s... that’s my...”

“Yeah, it is,” Bofur cut him, grinning madly, before putting a hand on one side of Bilbo’s back. “This one’s yers, and that one...” his hand slipped to the other side. “That one’s mine, I think. Explains a lot I’d say, no?”

Thorin nodded silently, staring at Bilbo in awe.

Bilbo who was sure he’d never been more embarrassed in his life.

“I can’t imagine there’s anyone on my back that belongs to either of you,” he stated a little coldly, trying desperately to sound angry rather than flustered.

“But there is,” Thorin assured him, raising a hand to touch the hobbit’s back too (and oh, really, did he _have_ to shiver like that? It wasn’t _proper_ ). “You, my dear mister Baggins, have our Marks.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t,” Bilbo insisted. “I don’t have Marks. Wouldn’t I know if I had one, let alone two?”

“Dunno, when was th’last time ye checked yer back?” Bofur asked.

“It’s not proper to...”

“Then it’s easy that ye didn’t know. And to think we were having such a damn dilemma ‘bout this whole thing,” the toymaker sniggered, turning his gaze to Thorin. “I’d told ye that little squibble on our wrists was a hobbit’s Mark. They make everything dainty and precious and pretty like that.”

Thorin nodded again, and he was smiling. Bilbo couldn’t decide if that was scary, or impossibly attractive. Bit of both, really.

“I still don’t get what’s going on,” the hobbit stated. “What squibble? What dilemma?”

“This squibble,” Thorin explained, holding out his hand for Bilbo to see. And on his wrist, there was a delicate drawing of a cup of tea, with steam coming out of it to from a little B.

“Oh,” Bilbo said.

He knew that drawing.

It was _his_ drawing, his signature as a child, the little thing he’d put down on everything he wrote or drew.

It was _him_ , in a way.

“Oh,” he repeated. “Oh.”

“We’ve broken him,” Bofur laughed.

“I certainly hope we haven’t,” Thorin replied with a smile. “Not when we have finally discovered that we are allowed to both want him. Unless, of course, you just don’t know how to tell us that our affections are not returned, mister Baggins?”

“How could I not love you?” Bilbo blurted out, blushing as he realized what he’d said. “I didn’t mean...!”

“I think ye meant it, lad,” Bofur replied, kissing his cheek. “It’s okay. We mean it too.”

“Indeed we do,” Thorin confirmed, kissing his other cheek. “And I believe we now have much to talk about, the three of us.”

Bilbo couldn’t help a foolish grin.

He’d spent most of his life telling himself he didn’t have a Mark.

He’d never been happier to be wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> a fluffy, lighter interlude in this series, because it is Alckalin's birthday, because the AU was her idea, and that her ORIGINAL PLAN was to have a Soulmark AU for Bagfurshield, but then I hijacked it with the OT4...XD


End file.
